The Rani (The Rani Elite)

The Rani
Main aliases:	Cleopatra Selene, Melanie Bush, Lania, Professor Baxton, Principal C.B. Wainwright
Species:	Time Lord
Job:	Prison governor
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
First appearance:	The Mark of the Rani
Appearances:	see list
Main TV actor:	Kate O'Mara
Main voice actor:	Siobhan Redmond
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Incarnations of the Rani

Ushas, better known as the Rani and known more formally as Ushas of Miasimia Goria, or, in other accounts, as simply Rani, was a renegade Time Lady and member of the Deca. A brilliant but cold neurochemist, she knew the Doctor and the Master when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.

Biography

The Rani's incarnations

The Rani was, regardless of incarnation, a brilliant scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was highly intelligent but extremely arrogant, narcissistic, ruthless, powerful and intensely cruel.

• The First Rani was a cruel woman whose evil deeds and notoriety had made her the second most wanted criminal in the galaxy, after the Master. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men Much like the Doctor, she had a considerable presence. This presence, however, rested not in a fondness for the planet but as a focal point for her research projects.
• Just as amoral as her previous incarnation, the Second Rani always believed that the end always justified the means. Not above making jokes at the expense of others, she held a great disdain and disinterest in the Doctor's antics. Unlike her previous incarnation, she had a certain level of anxiety in breaking the Laws of Time. (AUDIO: The Rani Elite)

Undated events

In the War in Heaven, the Lord President reintegrated several barely-reformed renegades into Gallifreyan society. One former renegade Time Lady, who was known for her engineered creatures, became a tutor to newly-loomed soldiers. Holsred remembered a lecture in which she connected an artron energy generator to a white rat's brain and then let the rat use the energy to kill a hungry Gallifreyan cat. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Father Kreiner had the heads of the Rani and the Master as trophies; however, at least one of them was a clone created in the High Council's hatchling projects. (PROSE: Interference)

Personality

The Rani squabbles with Rose Tyler. (COMIC: Untitled)

While she did appear evil, she found the Master to be truly evil and therefore stupid. She also said that his plans were so overcomplicated that if he walked in a straight line he would get dizzy. She didn't have a good impression of either of her old classmates when she encountered the Master and the Sixth Doctor. What evil she did she felt was necessary to her work. When the Doctor tried to convince her not to experiment on humans, she called them carnivores and asked if they ever thought of the lesser species when they sunk their teeth into a lamb chop; she had a conscience of some kind, as she was later willing to destroy her test subjects intending to kill the Doctor. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)

Behind the scenes

• Kate O'Mara portrayed the Rani in all of her television appearances including the 1993 special Dimensions in Time. In this story, the Rani traps all seven of the Doctor's incarnations and fellow companions in the East End of London.
• It was never made clear on-screen as to whether Kate O'Mara was the first Rani or simply the first one covered by the series. However, Pip and Jane Baker's novelisation of Time and the Rani confirms that the Rani is still in her first incarnation.
• In August 2012, Steven Moffat stated that "he had no reason to bring back the Rani", thus putting an end to the rumours of her return to the television series.
• Russell T Davies has said that if he had brought back the Rani, he would have cast actress Ruthie Henshall in the role.
• Plans were underway to bring back Kate O'Mara as the Rani for new Big Finish Productions audios, but O'Mara passed away a few weeks before recording. Upon being assured by O'Mara's agent that she'd wished them to continue the project without her, Big Finish cast Siobhan Redmond as a new incarnation of the Rani.
• In the commentary for Last of the Time Lords, Russell T Davies jokingly termed the hand seen removing the Master's ring from the ashes of his funeral pyre "the hand of the Rani". He would later write it being the hand of a disciple of Harold Saxon's in The End of Time.